TV News LIES

A New York appeals court on Wednesday declined another bid by former President Trump to delay his hush money trial for the third time this week.

The former president’s lawyers took aim at three rulings by Judge Juan Merchan: refusing to recuse, not delaying the trial until the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s presidential immunity claim, and requiring Trump to seek permission before filing new motions before trial.

Trump is using a maneuver under New York state law, known as an Article 78 proceeding, that involves suing the judge over their decisions.

The filings were placed under seal and are not publicly available. The Hill has requested comment from Trump’s lawyers.

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Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Wednesday denounced former President Trump’s exhortation for Congress to kill the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as “crazy and reckless” and warned there will be “blood on people’s hands” if the intelligence community’s surveillance authority expires and there’s a terrorist attack on the United States.

Barr, who served in Trump’s Cabinet in 2019 and 2020, noted that Trump at one time supported the expanded surveillance powers authorized under Section 702 of FISA and warned that political “posturing” against extending that authority would be dangerous to national security.

“I think it’s crazy and reckless to not move forward with FISA. It’s our principal tool protecting us from terrorist attacks. We’re living through a time where those threats have never been higher, so it’s blinding us, it’s blinding our allies,” Barr told The Hill in an interview.

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Donald Trump’s former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg is returning to jail after pleading guilty to perjury over testimony he gave during a sprawling fraud case targeting the former president’s real estate empire.

Entering a Manhattan criminal courtroom on Wednesday in a dark jacket and blue face mask, Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in prison, weeks after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors to admit that he lied to investigators and a judge probing the former president’s real estate empire.

He spent 100 days at the notorious New York jail last year after he was convicted on a range of tax crimes in a separate case stemming from a sweeping criminal investigation into Mr Trump’s business.

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Federal judges have begun ordering the early release pending appeal of Jan. 6 defendants who challenged their sentences even though the Supreme Court is a week away from hearing arguments on whether a key charge brought against them is legally sound.

Fifteen prominent historians filed an amicus brief with the US supreme court, rejecting Donald Trump’s claim in his federal election subversion case that he is immune to criminal prosecution for acts committed as president.

Authorities cited in the document include the founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Adams, in addition to the historians’ own work.

Trump, the historians said, “asserts that a doctrine of permanent immunity from criminal liability for a president’s official acts, while not expressly provided by the constitution, must be inferred. To justify this radical assertion, he contends that the original meaning of the constitution demands it. But no plausible historical case supports his claim.”

Trump faces four federal election subversion charges, arising from his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, fueled by his lie about electoral fraud and culminating in the deadly attack on Congress of 6 January 2021.

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Days after former President Donald Trump posted a $175 million bond to block New York state from imminently collecting on a huge civil fraud judgment, state lawyers Thursday called for more information on the bond’s bona fides.

State Attorney General Letitia James’ office filed papers giving Trump’s lawyers or the bond underwriter 10 days to “justify” the bond — essentially, to show that the company can make good on it. That could mean disclosing more about the collateral Trump provided.

A hearing was set for April 22.

One of Trump’s lawyers, Christopher Kise, said James was trying to provoke a “baseless public quarrel in a desperate effort to regain relevance” after an appeals court last month significantly cut the amount of the bond needed to hold off collection.

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